Why are electric cars portrayed so negatively in the media?

Electric cars have made enormous progress in recent years

This applies to range, charging speed, safety and environmental aspects alike. Tesla can be regarded as the market leader here: it takes completely new and innovative paths, is not guided by old dogmas, rigid structures or “proven” production methods, but makes what was previously impossible possible. In our view, Elon Musk as its head is a genius who not only thinks a few years ahead but mentally links different technologies at early stages of development and drives development forward. For many people, the individual decisions and technologies only become plausible and comprehensible years later.

Despite the enormous progress, electric cars – above all Tesla with its CEO Elon Musk – are often portrayed negatively in the media, which leads to an emotional and often fact-free debate. Perhaps one of the reasons is that electric cars are a thorn in the side of the old, large and sluggish OEM car manufacturers with their dealer networks (which live from servicing), because they themselves cannot produce electric cars at a profit! Or is the reason that he took over Twitter and turned it into a platform for free speech? The former arrogance, presumption and above all sluggishness of the old car manufacturers, with their concept of outsourcing, could become a boomerang and possibly spell the end of many old, well-known car manufacturers. This change, too, serves human progress: shedding old ballast and thinking – and walking – completely new paths.

Efficiency and environmental aspects

Electric cars are far more efficient than conventional vehicles with combustion engines. Most electric motors have an efficiency of over 90 per cent, compared with combustion engines at only 20 to 30 per cent. This means that electric cars use more energy to propel the vehicle and convert less energy into waste heat. Regenerative braking, for example, has already been perfected at Tesla to the point that cars with over 100,000 and 200,000 km are still running on their first brake discs or pads, because braking, coupled with the electric motors, feeds energy back into the batteries. Oil changes and service intervals are no longer needed, so monthly running costs are significantly lower than for classic petrol or diesel vehicles.

The environmental aspect of electric cars is also very positive: since they produce no emissions (soot particles, fine dust, etc.) while driving, they do not contribute to air pollution. Producing electric car batteries does require more energy than producing a combustion engine, but studies show that electric cars cause significantly fewer emissions over their lifetime. Current batteries last much longer with less degradation than they did 10 years ago, and batteries that have to be replaced after around 10 years at around 85% efficiency get a second life in battery storage systems for a further 10 years. Currently, 95% of the reusable materials and raw materials in batteries can be recycled, so the raw materials can be returned to the cycle – a new and very lucrative business field for companies specialising in battery recycling (e.g. Redwood Materials):

Redwood Materials

Battery technology

Battery technology has made enormous progress in recent years. Current batteries no longer contain cobalt as a raw material in their chemistry, which used to be a controversial issue. Companies such as CATL, BYD and Tesla increasingly use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) or M3P batteries, which contain no cobalt, so the arguments often used until now about cobalt mining and child labour no longer apply. Especially as child labour in cobalt mining serves more as propaganda, because the big manufacturers have contracts with the large mining companies and not with the small family businesses where children try to increase their parents’ income. Cobalt itself is a by-product of copper and nickel mining and does not have to be mined separately.

Energy density has also increased considerably. CATL is ramping up production of a new efficient battery that achieves an energy density of 205 Wh/kg and allows a range of over 1,000 km. With this battery, at least 500 km of range can be charged in 10 minutes, even in the coldest conditions of −20 degrees Celsius.

The latest CATL Condensed battery even has an energy density of 500 Wh/kg and is currently being tested in aircraft in order to switch them to electric propulsion too. Another interesting company with innovative battery technology is Amprius, which has also developed a 500 Wh/kg battery system, with further upward potential.

Burning batteries in electric cars – a distortion of the truth or deliberate deception?

The media repeatedly give the impression that battery fires in electric cars are a major problem and occur far more frequently than in cars with combustion engines. Here too, the facts paint a completely different picture: according to insurance statistics, the ratio is between 1:30 and 1:60, depending on the source. That means for every electric car that catches fire, 30–60 cars with combustion engines burn.

Possible health burdens or effects

Another important point is the possible health burden in the car: alternating electromagnetic fields (electric motors, battery systems, inverters, etc.) and high-frequency, pulsed radiation (phone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth). That these fields can have negative effects on our nervous system and metabolism (depending on frequencies and intensities) is beyond question for us and was already demonstrated at university level at the end of the 1990s.

Thermal loads (heating of tissue) are a problem. Pulsed electromagnetic radiation, which can “dock” onto our receptors and nerves in the body, is possibly an even greater challenge. Comparative measurements between normal combustion engines, hybrids and pure electric cars, compared with the fields and intensities measured in offices, homes and public places, would be important.

So far there are only few reliable data on the effects of electromagnetic fields and exposure in the car from phones, Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies. We cannot find or verify the often-mentioned but so far unverifiable claims that values of several thousand nT (nanotesla) are measured in electric vehicles. On the contrary: the measurements carried out and documented so far show very low exposure. The question arises: do these measurements come from cars currently in production, or are they ten or more years old – or is it simply a fact-free opinion?

The data available so far show that Tesla in particular has the lowest electromagnetic exposure (electrosmog stress) compared with other electric cars or normal cars.

Tesla Model S: approx. 20 nT in the head and hip area, approx. 100 nT in the foot area. “In vehicles with combustion engines, electrosmog values are in most cases higher than in electric cars. At Tesla they are even remarkably low.”

Testers’ conclusion: “Tesla seems to have deliberately shielded its batteries, motors and cables” Measurement range: 50 hertz to 100 kilohertz

teslamag.de (German)

We assume that the namesake of what is for us the most innovative electric car brand, Nikola Tesla, has left his mark on the Tesla company. After all, Nikola Tesla was very aware of the effects of electromagnetic and high-frequency fields on the body.

Outlook

The future for electric cars is very positive, and the steadily rising sales figures of pure electric cars show this. With ever greater mass production, the costs of manufacturing and selling them continue to fall compared with petrol, diesel or hybrid cars, which will hardly be economical any more in a few years. FSD 12.4.1 (Full Self-Driving, supervised), already in use in the USA, sets completely new standards in autonomous driving and has nothing to do with previous systems, no matter which manufacturer. Tesla is years ahead of other car manufacturers, because with 5 million vehicles worldwide, enormous amounts of video data from a wide variety of driving situations can be collected every day and trained by AI in combination with neural networks, without classic lines of code. Improvements come in ever shorter cycles, with exponential gains.

New technologies such as neutrinovoltaics as decentralised energy converters can reduce the need for ever larger battery storage systems, because with small 2 kW units such as the one recently presented, car batteries can be charged decentrally 24/7, anytime and anywhere.

Overall, developments in recent years show that electric cars are a more efficient, more environmentally friendly and more cost-effective alternative to conventional vehicles with combustion engines. It is important that the public debate is determined by facts and not by emotions or propaganda.

Interesting links

• CATL 500 Wh/kg battery video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhMOhrXm4n4
• Amprius: https://amprius.com/
• Neutrino Power Cube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YEO8Qit1Bw
• Neutrino Energy Group: https://neutrino-energy.com/
• Battery recycling – Redwood Materials: https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
• Battery recycling video: https://youtu.be/Q4T_tgZKJe4?si=1jHoePpI83twpVEI
• PV module recycling – SolarCycle: https://solarcycle.us
• Click to load — connects to YouTube

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